Multiheaded, usually I would pay the karma toll to reply to your comment, but I've just been karmassasinated and so I'll put it here instead.

Firstly, while I personally am perfectly capable of reading such material without serious harm (thank God), many people are not, so I was fairly shocked to stumble across it in the middle of your post. It would not have damaged your point to warn those who find such things traumatic beforehand, and neglecting to do so is, to be dark-artsy for a moment, hardly strengthening your claim to be the empathic one in this discussion.

As for whether I would like to live in a world where people are willing to torture me and my loved ones if they think it's justified - I already live in such a world. This is a thing humans do. Emotional appeals are, in fact, noticeably more effective at getting people to do this than cold utility calculations. So yes, I would rather people based their atrocities on a rigorous epistemic foundation rather than how those guys are The Enemy and must be fought, no matter the cost. For the children!

I'm well aware of the dangers of self-deception, as should anyone trying to make such calculations be. But it's even easier when you're relying on outrage rather than rationality.

Finally, it's interesting that you claim it's OK to make use of dark arts techniques to (attempt to) manipulate us, because this is so important that the usual LessWrong standards of trying to minimise bias, mindkilling and generally help people discern the correct position rather than the one that's covered in applause lights. Isn't truth and so on another precommtment you shouldn't break just because the expected utility is so high?